Of Comfortable Silences
by Dream.Big.Die.Free
Summary: The decorations have started to float down from the ceiling, and litter the floor in a sad, yet endearing, kind of way. The night is almost over and the songs that she could actually enjoy dancing to have turned to the slow, mushy kind of crap that Carly is into. One shot.


**Enjoy :)**

The decorations have started to float down from the ceiling and litter the floor in a sad, yet endearing kind of way. The night is almost over and the songs that she could actually enjoy dancing to have turned to the slow, mushy kind of crap that Carly is into. Despite the fact that they'd all come together as friends –all five of them, her, Carly, Brad, Freddie and Gibby- Carly has still managed to find herself a boy, some guy Sam is sure plays on the football team or the basketball team or, maybe, the baseball team. He's a jock, either way.  
Either way, it is guaranteed Carly will be enamoured with him for at least another week before he goes and does something stupid like try to push her too far and Sam will have to beat the crap out of him, just because. But for right now, her best friend is happy, head laid on his buff chest, while Brad sits a table away, sipping a Coke and glaring at the gently swaying pair.  
Sam's not too sure where her other friends disappeared to. She's pretty certain Gibby is outside behind a bush somewhere puking up the six to eight cans (she lost count) of beer he downed before they arrived.  
And Freddie, well, he's probably used some sort of weird dork charm to persuade some innocent girl to dance with him. That, or he did the intelligent thing and left already. Sam hasn't seen him since dinner ended and she got up to shake it with the best of them. An hour later and she's kind of wishing she hadn't just abandoned him. She knows how much he hates these things, but he always makes for good company when they lose whatever sparkle they held for her. He enjoys surveying the pairs of sweaty teens and mocking them along with her. She wonders vaguely, if only for a moment, what it was about this particular school function that was so unbearable. He normally sticks around, waits for her and drops her home. Sometimes they'll even get burgers

Her shoes are off at this point, dangling from her left hand and her bare feet are swung up on an empty chair beside her. She leans heavily on the back of the seat, and sighs. Even though she resisted the temptation to drink (it tended to take the edge out of the harder parts of life; like flying solo at your junior prom), her head feels heavy and her eyes droop. She doesn't have the stamina for this, because, if she's honest, she'd much rather stay up all night at Carly's, eating ham and watching movies. She doesn't _like_ most of her classmates and frankly, having Carly primp her for the better part of 3 hours is just too much hassle for ten photos and the off chance someone cute might ask her to dance (the odds obviously weren't in her favour). Jeans and a hoodie takes minimal effort and they make her much happier. Even as she prepares these arguments in her head, she knows she'll still come to the next one. Especially if Carly demands she does, blackmails her into by saying that she won't go unless Sam joins her. And Carly would stay true to her word. Sam can hear her say it in her head. That's just who her best friend is.

Her eyes are closing –Carly is still with Paul... or was it Mark?- the gymnasium in front of her blurring, the figures of her peers disappearing in the haziness of lack of sleep, as her blonde curls fall to rest on the metal of the uncomfortable chairs they'd set out for everybody to use while they ate.

"Mind if I sit, Puckett?" his voice comes from nowhere and as she jolts back to consciousness she loses her grip on reality for a moment, and forgets where she is. But, as she feels someone –the Nub- move her legs before placing them back down again, this time on something considerably softer.

"I hate these things," she sighs loudly, and shifts uncomfortably in her seat.

"Yeah."

They're good at comfortable silences, into which they launch now. His finger tips drum against her legs in a steady beat keeping time to the music and Sam tries to remember why they can't just leave.

"Where'd you disappear to?" she asks when the song, some girly chizz she really didn't like, ends.

She doesn't know why she cares. She shouldn't care, right? She doesn't care. She's Sam Puckett.

"In the men's room, trying to get Gibby to put his pants back on. I don't even know why I bother half the time," his laugh is hardly believable, and Sam snorts out a chuckle of her own, "you know he's drunk, right Sam?"

She opens her eyes again, squinting just enough so Freddie comes into focus, sitting there in his dark shirt and dress pants. He looks like a dork.

"Are you accusing me of something nub?"

"Never."

He is smirking at her, a familiar impish one that causes her to roll her eyes at him, before closing them again heavily, the conversation lapsing once again into silence.

"Next time, we'll just go home as soon as Carly finds someone else to entertain her," he breaths out, in this tired voice that she barely hears.

But they won't. Next time, they'll do just this. Sit together, sometimes talking, sometimes not. Always touching and they'll wait it out. They could leave and Carly wouldn't even miss them. After all, she'll just hitch a ride home from Jonathan or Chris or whatever that guy's name is and Sam will lug herself into Freddie's passenger side, and try to convince herself that what they do is totally normal.

They'll just stay together, until it's literally too late to justify waiting anymore because Carly is long gone and Ms. Briggs is kicking them out of the gym.

Sam really doesn't like to think about what that means.

**Yeah, I don't know what this is...**


End file.
